Living in a World of Un-Free Competition

It is clear and obvious that in economic life, free competition leads to the fast ruin of all the participants. Therefore the absolute need for cartelization.  And cartels can exist only with strong policing. Conclusion: Police is the key to well functioning, efficient and peaceful human societies.

I am reading about the economic history of Britain and how difficult was the transition from an economy regulated by trade guilds to a more open, almost competitive environment. Guilds were imperative for the survival of small tradesmen, limiting free competition that would have ruined all in no time. Guilds were severely self-regulated and they constantly protected their economic niche. They organized public parades to affirm their legality. Their most difficult problem was how to fix the "just price" for their products and services, that would allow their existence and at the same time, be acceptable for their customers. They were necessarily against innovations that would lead to differences between members and possibly destroy their regulated system - see Luddite rebellion. They were against newcomers, especially Jews that were more efficient and would undercut them.

We in the West live in a semi-free competition world. I am an engineer and my income is regulated by my guild and the State protection: for building permits and so a submittal signed by a professional engineer is needed. No building of business can operate without paying a fee to me or my guild members. The medicine trade is even more protected, as are architects and lawyers. To work as a lawyer in Israel, it is not enough to pass the university exams, there are guild exams too (very difficult) and the need to serve for a nominal salary as an intern in a law office. It is the same master system of the medieval guilds. In Israel, the rules to practice the trade were relaxed and suddenly there were thousands of immigrant doctors and layers competing with old, established practitioners. Very rapidly the guilds closed ranks and with the help of the State, they erected tall barriers. Interestingly, Israeli Arabs are accepted in existing guilds, they are equals and even given priority to practice in their ethnic community.

The Israeli state is constantly inventing new regulations and imposing new barriers for everything. I know of public lobbying such as the lawyers, that succeeded in limiting the number of new lawyers. New franchised professions are being created each day, such as teachers of retarded, that have to get master specialization and soon, probably, Ph.D. A building permit may require acoustic experts,  endangered species expert, whatnot. Twenty years ago most fields were open, and I did expert opinions in chicken farm smells, in chimney pollution, in many nascent areas. Today, all those areas are covered by licensed "experts" with officially recognized diplomas. I could find new, yet unregulated niches, but I have too much work and feel tired and old. I am looking forward to retirement and death.

An example of what I am talking about is "Street Sweeping Expert" (see below). Mr Carter offers his services and his certification as expert. He has developed the "Certified Sweeper Operator" which probably merits better salary conditions and may one day evolve into a licensed trade guild a-la attorney or pharmacist. Should Mr Carter get his way, the day will come when you cannot work as a street sweeper without a "Certified Street Swiper" degree.

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Additional Information

There are six kinds of sweeping.  While there is some overlap, each has different equipment and skill sets.
• Parking Lot Sweeping
• Construction Site Sweeping
• Highway and Roadway Sweeping
• Municipal Street Sweeping
• Indoor and Warehouse Sweeping
• Private Community Sweeping
Mark Carter has experience in all six types of sweeping.   He has over 10,000 hours of  “in the seat” operator experience as well as 30+ years running a street sweeping company.  He has trained over 100 sweeper operators in the basics, advanced techniques, and best practices.
He is a past president of the North American Power Sweeping Association and has served on the Board of Directors for 20+ years.  He has chaired the National Certification Committee for sweeping companies and chaired the Certified Sweeper Operator committee that developed a national online training course to train and certify sweeper operators.

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Israel exports 26 billion dollars worth of thin air in 2018

It appears that the most successful export of Israel is ideas, that is, companies. Luftgescheften. Thin air. Foreigners paid in 2018 26 billion dollars for Israeli companies and startups. What did they paid for? Ideas of products that can be sold. The actual product, once the manufacturing process has been established, can be made anywhere and better and cheaper in China.


Instead of an agricultural powerhouse, as envisioned by the Zionist pioneers, or the planetary finance center, as I thought should be our destiny, we are selling companies. Above: Eyal Waldman, founder of the Mellanox company whose product is cloud solutions, recently sold it to Nvidia for 7.36 billion US dollars.

What are cloud solutions? and why it is worth so much?  Right: "The Clouds" by Aristophanes, a witty, mordant play on Socrates' "idea shop". 

Balls on Ice

Mike Jagger (left: recent pic) got his girlfriend pregnant at age 72, at an age that the average man (not me!) has sex once a year, at most. How he does it? There are proven ways to increase old man fertility, and the most effective is the one employed in Argentina with older or indifferent reproductor bulls. They put the abulic bull to pasture in the same potrero with a young heifer for several days. Nothing happens but as the days go, they get more familiar with each other. Then they introduce a young potent bull into the potrero and the newcomer starts courting the heifer. The old bull suddenly loses its calm and excitedly pushes the youngster away and fucks the heifer. 

Amazingly, watching porn before sex also increases potency and sperm volume and quality, and the best porn is one girl with two men. The competitive instinct kicks in and the body tries to make sure that its sperm will win the competition. Take my word, this trick works. 

Be cool is also a piece of good medical advice. Reducing the temperature of the testicles improves sperm formation. There are underwear models with pockets for ice cubes, not very comfortables but effective. Two hours a day make the trick.

The most pleasurable method is five minutes of foreplay. Doctors advise it for females but it works also for men, an increase their sperm volume significantly. Find an attractive, friendly woman and try it. Any volunteers out there?

Struggling to Recover Work Habit

In the last two weeks I have been working but without my former enthusiasm.  Most of the pressure comes from projects that I had given for finished, but the regulators demand additions and explanations. That is, unpaid work. Yet it has to be done. I am feeling despair about the permitting system in Israel, the regulators - bureaucrats in their air-conditioned offices - fell no shame in demanding 10 thousand dollars worth of reports and plans from a poor Oriental Jew who dreams of opening a small bakery or workers restaurant. I commented on this scandal with some of my colleagues but they are indifferent, cynical, and even exploitative.  I am losing my taste for this line of work. Pic.: A corner kitchen of a mini-"humuseria", humus and felafel eatery in Kfar Saba. I am working on the permit in the last six months and there is always some additional document that is missing or needs correcting.


PS.: My criticism of the native bureaucracy may be unjust. The London sewage outlet project (the Thames Tunnel) required a 50,000 pages permitting submission. 

The city opens anti-air refuges

The Major Rafi Sa'ar ordered the opening of the anti-air refuges and start preparations for missiles incoming from Gaza. We are in the Sharon area, 25 km north of Tel Aviv. Already there are three civilian victims in the South, and this confrontation appears to be increasing. The Arabs should consider that we have a brand new Chief of Staff, hungry for action and begging to show he is not Mr. Milquetoast. Photo: Reuters. 

100 hours riding the 6 Train

We lived in City Island in the Bronx and each day we took the 6 Train from Pelham Bay Park to Manhattan and back, a one hour ride. I made my shopping in the K-Mart and J.Penney and so in the Pelham Bay Park Center, and ate at the most proletarian Thai food stall in the third floor of the Mall. I can honestly state that in three weeks saw not a WASP person (say tall, slim, blondish and clear eyes). Everybody I met in the Bronx was Afro-American, Afro-African and many many Caribbeans and Central Americans. I had spent months in New York in the winter of 1969 (my graduation foreign trip) and the Bronx was Jewish and Italian and Irish and remembered well the architecture and infrastructure. At first, I was rather amazed by the replacement of the population, but soon I got used to it and being a native Spanish speaker, I felt at home among the friendly Latinos. Moreover, people were polite, non-violent and cleanly dressed, sitting quietly in the train playing games on the phone or hearing music through earphones. The level of human noise, shouts and so, was zero. It was as if everybody had been on tranquilizers. In the seventies, there were many shops selling hard drinks, the owners had guns in sight against robberies, now I could not find one liquor store, and did not see even one drunk holding the brown paper bag with a bottle inside, as was so common in my former visit. The trains were old, the wagons jumped and made frightening mechanical noises, but fifty years ago that was normal and certainly better than Argentine trains; today - compared with the trains in China and Israel - the 6 trains are dilapidated wrecks. But clean and working. A hundred percent (!) of the personnel is African American, middle-aged obese men, and women, polite and efficient: as said,  the trains were clean and on time. They spoke strongly accented English, some exaggerated Black speech so that I understood none of the announcements but when asked face to face, they made an effort to communicate. Before traveling, I made a research on the internet about the physical dangers awaiting us and found maps with neatly delined dangerous areas, but in reality, the streets were clean and no menacing persons could be seen. I found the Bronx and New York in general totally pacified and safe. I can report not one violent scene and not even one naked knife or gunshot. Oh yes! The police shooting range is in City Island and lots of shots were heard during the day.

Summary:

In the last fifty years, a total replacement of the population took place. One wonders where the natives had gone, where are the Anglosaxons and the Jews. The current population, contrary to my internet impressions, is quieter and safer than it was then. No drunks nor angry Blacks on the train. It is less amazing and exciting a place than it was then, but now I am old and less excitable.

The infrastructure - transportation, traffic, water, sewage, communication, etc. - has been maintained and everything is working, but it is old and antique in comparison with younger, more advanced cities.

The air is pure and the water is potable. The food and cloth are cheaper and of better quality than Israel.

All in all, New York is an aging (maybe decaying) city and a good place to live.

Photo: The Pelham Bay Park Station. Source. This guy had a better camera and more talent than I.

Israel: Tax Paradise

I feel I am paying exorbitantly excessive taxes, but it appears that Israel is a veritable tax paradise. The graph above reflects the "tax wedge" extracted by the State from a typical employee. In Israel it is about 20% in comparison with 30% in the USA and 55% in Belgium. I always thought Norway, with its oil exports and reserves, imposes no personal taxes, but it seems that it squeezes twice as much as the State of Israel squeezes from poor us.